PGA Championship 2026: Aronimink finally provided an opening, but the window was fleeting

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — On Thursday and Friday, debates raged as to whether the setup at Aronimink was a unique success demanding intense strategic discipline, or whether—as our Joel Beall and the majority of players argued—its reliance on gimmicky pin positions had proven ineffective at rewarding good golf, instead producing a bunched-up leaderboard with scant birdie opportunities. The scoring average on both days finished beyond two strokes over par, and no matter where you settled on the great Aronimink question, the course had decisively crushed the notion that it would roll over and play dead for the alphas.

This sucker had teeth. Then Saturday came, and for most of the morning, a kinder, gentler Aronimink emerged. We saw the Aronomink of soft conditions and windless skies , and the players, like shoots of grass poking their heads out after a harsh winter, seized the chance—Justin Rose shot 65, Chris Kirk shot 65, Kristoffer Reitan made two eagles to shoot 65, Rory McIlroy and Joaquin Niemann shot 66, and they all waited and prayed that they wouldn't be left in the dust.

They openly begged for deteriorating conditions: Respites for me, but not for thee. Aronimink obliged, mostly. We can't quite say the bridge was burned the minute the morning wave crossed, but a look at the DataGolf stats paints a disparate picture of what ensued: A scoring average of -0.

42 strokes for those who teed off at 11 a. m. or earlier—a good three strokes easier than anything we'd seen to date—and +0.